0 KUHAP bill will not weaken the antigraft body: Govt

The government said on Wednesday that the bill on Criminal Code procedures (KUHAP) would not curtail the antigraft body’s power to wiretap corruption suspects. Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Denny Indrayana said the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) would be exempted from a clause in the draft KUHAP bill requiring law enforcement bodies to request a court permit before they could carry out wiretaps. 

“The KPK has its own law that is considered lex specialis. It does not have to abide by the KUHAP,” Denny said. The former member of the government-sanctioned task force on judicial corruption denied reports that the draft bill aimed to weaken the antigraft agency. The government finally submitted drafts of the Criminal Code (KUHP) and KUHAP bills to the House of Representatives for deliberation after years of delay. 

The bills will revise the existing KUHP and KUHAP laws, which were made decades ago and widely considered out of date. In the KUHAP, wiretapping is legally forbidden to protect civil rights. Law enforcers are allowed to conduct wiretapping while investigating certain crimes but they must obtain warrants from their superiors and a judge. A judge could issue a permit for wiretapping for 30 days that could be extended for a maximum additional 30 days. The KPK expressed concern about the bill. 

Its spokesman, Johan Budi, said that the bill should clearly stipulate that it did not limit the KPK’s authority to wiretap. “Don’t let the revised KUHAP overlap with another law,” he told reporters at the KPK’s headquarters in South Jakarta on Wednesday. A number of legal experts, however, expressed their concern that the bill, when enacted, would weaken the KPK, which had succeeded in uncovering many graft cases by bugging the telephone conversations of rogue officials. 

Andi Hamzah, criminal law expert from the University of Indonesia, said that even though the KPK had its own law it might still have to comply with the Criminal Code procedures. During an emergency situation, the KPK could notify the court about the wiretapping but it must stop if the court denies it a permit, he said, as quoted by tempo.co, on Wednesday. The KPK’s authority to wiretap has long been the subject of controversy. 

Several lawmakers attempted to strip the commission of this power through a proposed revision to the 2002 KPK Law. The planned revision aimed to end the commission’s prosecution authority, leaving the prosecution of graft cases to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and the police. Antigraft watchdogs opposed the move and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made it clear that his administration would revise the KPK Law, and rejected the lawmakers’ proposal.

source : the jakarta post